Beleaguered Russian Orchestra Tours U.S.

By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY

Published: March 4, 2006

CORRECTION APPENDED

In a classical music season focused on the anniversaries of Mozart and Shostakovich, the Russian National Orchestra, Russia's first and foremost independent orchestra, visits New York bearing Tchaikovsky. In programs at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, it will offer nothing but, except a dash of Stravinsky, and even that is based on music of Tchaikovsky.

Lincoln Center requested Tchaikovsky, said Vladimir Jurowski, the orchestra's principal guest conductor, who will lead these concerts. He agreed, he said, on the condition that he could perform mostly lesser-known repertory.

On the company's current monthlong American tour, Mikhail Pletnev, the sublime pianist, and the orchestra's founder and artistic director, will conduct in Las Vegas, Seattle and, in California, in San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. His programs will include Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.

Mr. Pletnev, famously reclusive, was unavailable for an interview, but Mr. Jurowski, who combines fiery looks with a restrained demeanor, offered the perspective of a conductor with Russian roots and broad Western experience. He left the Soviet Union at 18 to study in Germany and now spends half the year in Britain as principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic and Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Stints in the United States have included the Metropolitan Opera.

''From the early start of this orchestra's activity, they have learned to work, I would say, the Western way; they are very quick, they're very flexible,'' he said. ''They combine the Western approach to the music making with the inimitable Russian essence.''

That combination had been reflected in international recording contracts. It is the first Russian orchestra to win a Grammy, and it is recording all of Beethoven's symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon, an honor previously accorded only the best German orchestras and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Two concerts conducted by Mr. Jurowski last week in Moscow highlighted the tour program and the conditions in which the orchestra flourishes musically and struggles financially. The Stravinsky-Tchaikovsky repertory was performed at the Orchestrion, the lyric name gracing the very prosaic Soviet-era movie theater the orchestra rents in a southwestern district known for Khrushchev-era housing. The orchestra has been all but priced out of the Moscow Conservatory. Now, in central Moscow, it usually performs at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

There it previewed another Lincoln Center program: scenes from Shakespeare's ''Romeo and Juliet,'' ''Tempest'' and ''Hamlet,'' performed to Tchaikovsky's scores by Konstantin Khabensky, who stars in ''Night Watch,'' a Russian movie blockbuster now showing in the United States. Richard Thomas will perform them at Lincoln Center.

Musicians who were escaping state orchestras' administrative dictates and artistic constraints created the Russian National Orchestra in 1990. Its breathtaking playing immediately drew sponsors and recording contracts that lifted its salaries far above state orchestra levels.

Moscow alone has more than two dozen symphony orchestras, many far from lucrative for musicians, but Russia's oil dollars have flowed down to top state orchestras, whose salaries now outstrip the Russian National Orchestra's annual $15,000 to $25,000.

The boon has also helped finance the National Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Vladimir Spivakov, who had replaced Mr. Pletnev at the Russian National Orchestra when he decided to focus on playing and composing. But Mr. Spivakov fell out with the orchestra's management and left, taking many musicians along on promises of higher salaries.

Mr. Pletnev returned to the orchestra's collegium of conductors. In a rare interview last year, he told a Moscow newspaper that the orchestra's main hope for survival might be to become a state orchestra.

Sergei Markov, the orchestra's chief executive, is perplexed by the government's attitude.

''I worked in the diplomatic service, and I well know how the state needs some generator of good news, of good positive energy, image,'' he said.

''Russia needs this right now very much,'' he said. ''The state is spending tens of millions of dollars on the creation of Russia Today television. It's spending many millions of dollars on state orchestras, but there is the R.N.O., all ready, well known in the world, excellent. We're not asking a lot.''

Mr. Markov noted some positive signs: a $300,000 government grant and President Vladimir V. Putin's plans to attend one of four concerts the orchestra will give this spring in honor of Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes journalist murdered in Moscow in 2004. The orchestra is also commissioning a new piece in his memory. Mr. Klebnikov, who was of Russian descent, was from New York.

American patrons have embraced the Russian National Orchestra, coming to Russia for concerts in Moscow and the orchestra's annual Volga River cruise, which transports the entire ensemble and guests to concerts at historic cities.

In New York next week, a gala on Tuesday at the St. Regis Hotel will honor Charles Simonyi, Microsoft's former chief architect and a major patron, and will include performances by the pianist Yefim Bronfman and by Mikhail Simonyan, a 20-year-old Siberian violinist who studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and has returned to Russia to perform and conduct. He will play a Stradivarius once owned by Feliks Yusupov, one of Rasputin's killers. Janna Bullock, a Russian real estate developer who splits her time between Moscow and New York, donated $100,000 toward the gala.

Gordon Getty, the billionaire philanthropist, and the Napa Valley vintner Peter T. Paul are among the orchestra's leading patrons. The orchestra has performed extensively in California wine country and will inaugurate the Festival Del Sole in Napa Valley this summer.

Richard P. Walker, of the Russian Arts Foundation, an American group that backs the orchestra financially and organizationally, defined its attraction for Americans.

''It's determined, entrepreneurial, philanthropic,'' he said. ''A lot of traits that define Americans as well as define great orchestras and other good things around the world.''

Photo: Vladimir Jurowski is a guest conductor for the orchestra. (Photo by James Hill for The New York Times)

Correction: March 11, 2006, Saturday
An article in The Arts last Saturday about the Russian National Orchestra's visit to New York misidentified the speaker who recited excerpts from Shakespeare in performances at Lincoln Center. It was Michael Cumpsty, not Richard Thomas, who had originally been scheduled in that role.